Connected channels

#Included

• Paste. On New order, paste the message a seller sent. Dromos reads the customer, the address, the items and the date. See Taking orders.
• One tap. On an order, Message on WhatsApp opens your own WhatsApp with the message already written. You press send. It is free, and it comes from your own number.
• Email. Customer email is set up in Settings from your own mailbox, and is included.

#Optional, and paid

Connecting the WhatsApp Business account on your Facebook is a separate setup. So is connecting the other apps the office already runs the day on. The CEO asks for it under Settings → Connected channels. We do the connection with you, on your own accounts. The form does not read an inbox and does not send a message.

• WhatsApp Business — the number, the Facebook Business that owns it, and whether you want orders brought in, status messages sent back, or both. Status messages are: confirmed, on the way, delivered, missed.
• Other apps — Facebook Page or Messenger, Instagram, the office phone, a spreadsheet, an existing online shop, accounting, SMS you already pay for, or another app you name. Tick only the ones you use.
• A person to talk to — a name and an email. A phone number is optional.

#Sending status messages

Send status messages, under the request, is where the Cloud API is switched on. The CEO pastes the phone number ID and the access token. The token is stored encrypted and is not shown again. From then, four messages can leave on that number: confirmed, on the way (with the private tracking link), delivered (the photo is on the tracking page, and the message points at it when a photo was taken), and missed.

A missed message offers tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, or a call. The customer chooses on the tracking page, or replies with those words. Morning and afternoon book the next attempt. A call is written on the order for the office. A message that is an order — a name, a phone, a place and an item — lands in Pending review, with the seller named in it and the price that was quoted. A person still confirms it.

WhatsApp only accepts a free-form message inside 24 hours of the customer writing. After that, the same words go out as a template named dromos_status (language English, one body variable), which is approved once in WhatsApp Manager. The webhook address is /api/whatsapp on this site. The server needs WHATSAPP_APP_SECRET and WHATSAPP_VERIFY_TOKEN in its environment. Nothing sends until the token is saved.